Kennedy Meadows - Monache Meadows 6/19/10 14 miles

Kennedy Meadows was a good refresher for both of us. we started the day by making some phone calls to the family and then headed out about 8am. We walked in more dessert for quite sometime. We entered Seqouia National Forest , still some dessert and then began to see more of our style -more trees, Kern River flowing hard, shade and even got to eat lunch on a nice bridge over some rapids. Kinda reminded me of the Creeper Trail. We walked farther up and yet again , hit another sandy, dry burned area. I told Chris that after walking in beautiful forest was comparable to showing you steak and giving you hot dogs(funny how food is alway on the mind). We found a nice shade tree after walking a while and had lunch, sweet and spicy tuna wraps, mashed potatoes, peach tea and choc(thanks to our resupply from KM ). We had a tough climb after lunch , entering into more burned area, but this time the burned area was actually beautiful. Although the tall trees were black from the fire(30 years ago) they were all standing in a meadow of bright pink and purple flowers surrounding them. We continued on and ran into Nick, a new face on the trail. He complained of his heavy pack weight compared to ours. We reached Beck Meadows, gorgeous green fields on a mountain top with streams flowing through, with a view of snow capped mountains to come. This got us both excited! After a little map confusion and thinking we had already passed the camp spot, some day hikers set us on the right path. Across one more ridge and back down, we reached Monache Meadows, our favorite yet. Another wide open green meadow (my how we missed grass), but this time with another cool bridge and the Kern River flowing through. We set up camp next to our Aussie friends, Nick and Josh, and our Canadian friends, Paul and Laura. After going down to the river and relaxing, washing off and resupplying with water, we all sat around the fire and discussed a variety of random topics such as our different cultures, food, travel stories, trail talk and lots of good laughs. Laura's husband Paul is hilarious and kept us rolling! Chris and I both agreed that today was the best yet! KB